Chocolate or Strawberry
by ninfamaniac
Summary: Sometimes, for Hermione, it's hard to choose between things, even between her best friends. (Complete)


**Chocolate or Strawberry**  
  
by ninfa-maniac (on FFN) / -ninfa (on LJ)  
  
**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
  
**Summary:** Sometimes, for Hermione, it's hard to choose between things, even between her best friends.  
  
**Categories:** Romance  
  
**Notes:** Before you ask, I like both ice cream flavors.  
  
**My Thanks:** parvati87 and shadymemiors on LJ for support.  
  
**Warnings:** Mostly het, some slash. If that squicks you, go away.  
  
-----  
  
Hermione Granger, despite being brought up by two dentists, had a very sweet tooth. (Of course, being the smart witch she was, she could also tell you that there was no such thing as a tooth that liked sweets more than the others; teeth can't taste, so the common saying is actually referring to one's tongue.) At the ice cream shoppe down the street from her parents' house, she had the hardest time picking one flavour. She could stand there, in front of the white and sliver freezer, for a solid ten minutes, debating over chocolate or strawberry - her two very favourite flavours.  
  
Strawberry or chocolate. Chocolate or strawberry. And back again.  
  
Ice cream flavours weren't the only thing Hermione had trouble with. In her first year at Hogwarts, she found it hard to fit in until two fellow students saved her from a Troll in the girl's loo. She was Petrified that next year, missing many assignments and classes, until saved by her courageous friends. Third year, she took almost double the classes as anyone else in her year, thanks to a Time Turner, and prepared a defense for Hagrid's hippogriff, Buckbeak. That had been one of her hardest years - her friends had virtually deserted her - but it was nothing compared two watching them fight the next year and then see one of them in so much pain the year after that.  
  
It was her sixth year now, and she was having just as much trouble as ever. Hermione only wished it was about ice cream flavours, but it was so much more.  
  
She was taking all of the hardest classes to prove how well Muggleborns, like herself, could do in life. She was constantly busy knitting hats, socks, and scarves for the House Elves. She was a prefect. Harry and Ron were rarely happy.  
  
Ever since Hermione met Harry on the Hogwarts Express so many years ago, she never saw him without a hint of worry and pain in his eyes. Last year made his usually brilliant green eyes become dull, and the Boy Who Lived was seldom smiling.  
  
Ron wasn't much better. Usually, he was the most carefree of the bunch, but that quality she admired so much was dwindling to nothingness these days. Prefect duties, Quidditch practice, more homework than ever, and pressure from home was overwhelming him. He slunk a bit lower in his chair when sitting, his red hair was almost as messy as Harry's, rarely making quips about Snape or McGonagall.  
  
Hermione missed what she used to know of her two best friends, but knew it was the war that had changed them. The war had changed her, too; she valued life more.  
  
Hermione valued love more.  
  
Hermione often hid in her books. Probably humanly possible, Ron was quick to point out. They were something Hermione knew she could turn to in this uncertain time. The words never changed, the grammar never faltered; those books in that library were her safety and her home. In the library, she could think things over without the background noise always present in the common room.  
  
Her mind digested things in the library that it couldn't get a hold on anywhere else in the building. She thought about the war going on, Harry, Ron, her parents, and how the fight would change everything. As often as she tried, she never could stray from the two people closest to her heart, her two best friends.  
  
Parvati would gush to Hermione late at night in their dorms, admiring her for being friends with the two cutest boys in their year. "Have you ever thought of them as more?" she'd often ask.  
  
Hermione always answered her roommate in the same way. "No, Parvati! They're just my friends." Hermione always held her left hand under her pillow, first and middle fingers crossed, while she uttered these words.  
  
While in the library, she could think about Ron and Harry without interruption. She had known for a long time that both were close to her heart; if anything happened to either, Hermione knew she would loose part of what made her whole.  
  
Whole. That's how she felt when she was near both. They made her happy, even if they were sitting in the common room silently. Those were some of the best times of her life.  
  
Everything Hermione read in books told her that it was only possible to love one person; true, real love, the tomes in the library told her, was found between two people.  
  
Ron and Harry both had captured her heart long ago. She and Harry had a true, unspoken connection. They could look into each other's eyes and understand what was going to be going on next. Hermione felt wounded when he was sad, and she was always comfortable around him. Ron made Hermione feel her strongest emotions around him; she was happy and smiled when he told her jokes, but Ron also infuriated her immensely at times. Those were the times that she simply wanted to hold him and show him the real answer.  
  
She loved her friends more than she, with the biggest vocabulary in the school, could put into words.  
  
She told herself it wasn't right. She told herself it wasn't normal. She reminded herself what her books had said. She told herself she could only have one.  
  
Ron or Harry. Harry or Ron. And back again.  
  
It was late. Harry and Ron had asked Hermione for help on their Transfiguration essay days ago, and she had just remembered.  
  
Hermione rubbed her eye, pulled her night clothes closer around her body, looked up the stairs, and trudged up the boys dormitory stairs. She stood at the door for a moment. She couldn't let her feelings get her into trouble. She couldn't even admit to them that she had feelings. Hermione did, though, and they reminded her often that it wouldn't be "right" to love both.  
  
But Hermione did love both Harry and Ron very much.  
  
She opened the door to the sixth-year boy's dormitory, exactly where hers was, just to the left. The door opened quietly, but she heard something else. It took a moment for her eyes to be adjusted to the light; four of the five beds looked as if they hadn't been touched. Hermione remembered seeing Dean and Seamus in the common room, even at this late hour, but why was Harry's bed empty?  
  
Ron's had his scarlet and gold curtains pulled around his bed. Hermione noticed the corner had been slightly pulled back.  
  
She saw the two bodies close together, sitting on Ron's bed. Distraught, Hermione turned to leave; a tear rolled down her cheek as she realized that Ron was probably with some random girl he'd only just met. She couldn't bear to see one she loved with someone else. Hermione jerked the door open, letting it crash against the wall.  
  
Someone called out her name. It was Ron.  
  
A voice joined his, a voice she recognized as Harry's.  
  
Hermione turned around. Both boys stood a few steps above her, red-faced and breathing hard.  
  
"Hermione! Please, will you come back to our room? We need to talk with you."  
  
Her cheeks still slightly wet, but her brain working out what she had just seen, Hermione nodded. The boys she loved turned around, and she saw Ron grab Harry's hand.  
  
"We need to talk with you," Harry repeated as he sat next to Hermione on his bed.  
  
She could only nod.  
  
"Harry and I have realized, um, something."  
  
She couldn't bear to look at either of them. Her heart pounding in her head, she stared down at her socked feet.  
  
Harry reached over and nudged her chin up. "We love you, Hermione."  
  
"Hermione, we realized that we weren't complete without you," Ron added.  
  
"W-what?" she sputtered, disbelieving her ears.  
  
"The book worm needs it all spelled out, then?" Ron smiled at her. It was truly a rare, genuine smile. She realized how much she missed it.  
  
Harry took a deep breath, then began talking quickly. "See, I love you. And I also love Ron. Ron loves you, too, and I don't think I'm wrong when I say that Ron loves me." His green eyes had their sparkle in them again. She realized how much she missed it.  
  
-----  
  
Hermione, after standing in the local ice cream shoppe for some time, had the manager come up to her. He asked if she was having trouble choosing a flavor, and Hermione nodded.  
  
"Sometimes, I notice people have that problem. What sounds best?"  
  
"Either strawberry or chocolate. I never can decide."  
  
The manager went behind the silver and white freezers, leaned down, and presented Hermione with a scoop of both chocolate ice cream and strawberry ice cream, with a messy, fluffy gob of whipped cream in the middle.  
  
Hermione liked it best when the three were mixed. 


End file.
